Vanderbilt or Cornell? Very grateful to have offers at both of these institutions.

No merit aid in both schools. COA is about the same, Vandy about 30k more expensive at the end of the day.

Cornell Pros:

- NYC, high density of patients and heavy patient diversity for training

- Subsidized housing (including utilities $1000-1300$/month in NYC upper east side Manhattan)

- Ivy League Prestige? Both are similar in rank though

- Next to many other top names in Medicine (Columbia, Sinai, NYU, Einstein, etc.)

- Affiliated with NYP, Sloan Kettering, Rockefeller

- No MSPE Adjectives

Cornell Cons:

- Internal Rank that is only used for AOA (Internal Rank is not shared/used outside of AOA selection purposes)

- Graded Clerkships (H/HP/P/F)

- Potentially slightly more competitive environment

Vandy Pros:

- Big name in the south, Vanderbilt is the #1 name in that region

- Nashville is a great city with a great music and food environment

- P/F clerkships

- Better/more reputable student environment

Vandy Cons:

- MSPE Adjectives used

- Harder to differentiate in class if everything is true P/F? Not sure

- No other big name institutions around it tbh

- Many match internally at Vandy (however, I want to live in the northeast long term)

- COA is slightly more overall at the end of the day, and a car is recommended (currently don't have one)

My long term goals is to have a high ceiling for my medical career. I'm not sure what speciality I currently want to do (going to use pre clinicals to figure that out), but have had interest in cardiology, oncology, and potentially dermatology. But I really have an open mind for this. Ideally, I want to stay on the east coast as well and be able to match into big names in that region.

What do you guys think! Thanks so much.